Europe

MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/: Russia has registered 35,681 new confirmed COVID-19 infections over the past 24 hours, the lowest number since October 24, with the total number of infections reaching 9,366,839 cases, according to data of the anti-coronavirus crisis center published on Monday.

According to the crisis center, the relative increase of new infections is at the level of 0.38%.

MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/: The Ka-52 Alligator and Mi-28-NE combat attack helicopters have features and armaments that would meet the demands of any foreign customer, Andrei Boginsky, CEO of Helicopters of Russia, told TASS in an interview.

The Ka-52 can be ship-based, has folding rotor blades and folding stub wings for compact stowage, while the Mi-28NE Night Hunter has some other features that the Ka-52 doesn’t, he noted.

MOSCOW, November 22. /TASS/: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia's Special Presidential Envoy for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin, during a meeting, addressed the state of affairs in the republic with a focus on mobilizing comprehensive humanitarian assistance.

ATHENS, Nov 22 (Reuters) - International air traffic to Greece rose further in October, at the end of the peak summer tourism season, civil aviation authority data showed on Monday.

Arrivals more than doubled in that month to 1,683,723, from 741,932 a year earlier when COVID restrictions hurt international travel.

Greece, where about a fifth of economic output comes from tourism, suffered its most severe air traffic slump on record in 2020, with arrivals down 75% from the previous year.

BERLIN, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Berlin does not accept a Belarus proposal for Germany to take in 2,000 migrants who are currently on Belarusian territory, a government spokesperson said on Monday.

"The idea of having a humanitarian corridor to Germany for 2,000 migrants is not a solution that is acceptable to Germany or the EU," the spokesperson said.

BRUZGI, Belarus/WARSAW, Nov 22 (Reuters) - President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday Belarus seeks no confrontation with Poland but wants the European Union to take in 2,000 of the migrants stranded on its border, and he added that if the crisis deteriorated "too far, war is unavoidable".

The European Union accuses Belarus of flying in thousands of people from the Middle East and pushing them to cross into the EU via Poland, Lithuania and Latvia in retaliation for EU sanctions imposed on Minsk over Lukashenko's crushing of protests against his disputed re-election last year.

STOCKHOLM, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Sweden's parliament will vote on Wednesday on approving Social Democrat leader Magdalena Andersson as the country's first woman prime minister, the Riksdag speaker said on Monday, amid uncertainty over whether she can cobble together enough support.

Andersson, currently finance minister, has been locked in negotiations with the Left Party to secure their backing to take over from Stefan Lofven, who handed in his resignation as prime minister earlier this month. 

BUDAPEST, Nov 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations' top expert on freedom of opinion and expression expressed concerns about a "distorted media environment" in Hungary, saying on Monday that reporting around elections due next year must be fair and impartial.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Irene Khan also told reporters during a visit to Budapest that the "freedom of expression which political candidates have should not be abused to create a toxic environment of violence (and) hatred".

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Environmental activists are welcoming the end of electricity generation from coal in Portugal, though they said Monday the possible conversion of the country’s last coal-fired power plant into one that burns wood pellets would be a step in the wrong direction.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — The European Medicines Agency says it is evaluating whether to authorize booster doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot COVID-19 vaccine.

In a statement Monday, the EU drug regulator said it was considering an application from J&J to recommend booster doses of the J&J vaccine for adults 18 and over, at least two months after they were first immunized. Amid an explosive surge of new coronavirus infections across Europe, the EMA said it expected to make a decision on this within weeks.